The Document Foundation Releases LibreOffice 3.3

Four months after leaving OpenOffice.org, The Document Foundation has finally released the first stable version of LibreOffice. Although this is the first stable release, the release is given a version number 3.3 in continuation of the version number of OpenOffice.org.

Although The Document Foundation was started by less than twenty developers, the number has now grown to more than a hundred. This has allowed them to release LibreOffice ahead of schedule.

LibreOffice includes a number of original features which includes:

Ability to import SVG files in Draw and edit them interactively

Import filters for MS Works and Lotus Word Pro documents

Easy to use dialog box for title pages and page number in Writer

New tree view in Navigator Tool for Writer

Better import of WordPerfect files

Beside these new features, LibreOffice 3.3 also brings a number of extensions such as PDF importer, Presenter View in Impress, report builder etc. LibreOffice 3.3 also has all of the new features in OpenOffice.org 3.3.

CaolÃ¡n McNamara, one of the lead developers of LibreOffice, has this to say about the release

We are excited: this is our very first stable release, and therefore we are eager to get user feedback, which will be integrated as soon as possible into the code, with the first enhancements being released in February. Starting from March, we will be moving to a real time-based, predictable, transparent and public release schedule, in accordance with Engineering Steering Committee’s goals and users’ requests.

LibreOffice already has very strong backings in the open-source community. LibreOffice 3.3 is already the default office suite in Ubuntu 11.04 and it seems likely that other Linux distributions will follow suite as well.

LibreOffice 3.3 is available for Linux (both .deb and .rpm), Mac OS X and Windows. You can download it from here.

If you followed our instruction and installed LibreOffice 3.3 RC 4 in Ubuntu, there is no need to download and install the .deb file again. The final release is exactly the same as the fourth release candidate.